We saw yesterday how important it is, within the proposals to change Education, the development of critical thinking In the kids. Today I will offer you some ideas so that, if you think like me that is indispensable, help them develop it.
Ideas to favor critical thinking in children
We will have to allow them to learn things that are not in the program and set aside the contents that are too fixed. Being able to choose and delve into issues that they are passionate about investigating will help them better assess the different options and develop a critical thinking healthy.
We will have to allow them to ask for explanations, discuss and negotiate the rules that are negotiable, which should be, in reality, most of them, preserving our authority for the inevitable or that are indispensable for their safety, health and good social development.
As educators we will have to be consistent models at all times (or at least, since we are human beings that we are wrong, almost always). We will not do what is not right to do and even less will we justify our decisions thinking that being adults gives us the right to make them even if they are wrong.
We will be magnanimous with their failures so that they are with ours, and we will learn to apologize if we have acted badly. We ourselves we will apply critical thinking.
Causing the ability to think critically
We will not insist on instilling our religious or political beliefs, presenting them with objectivity and also giving their value to those who think differently. We will be respectful of other ethnicities, cultures, religions and ideologies, avoiding bias and confrontation.
We will encourage you to defend your own ideas with passion and respect, and to support them in arguments. And we will do that since they are small. There is nothing more desperate than a group of high school students who are paralyzed when they ask for their opinion on a subject or only know how to defend it with prejudices and disqualifications, because nobody ever encouraged them to critical thinking, but to memorization, lack of options and obedience.
We will help you develop a logical thought and express yourself with coherence, not giving so much value to the written expression over the oral. We will listen to them actively, without judgment, and of course, without arrogance. Many times children try to tell us something but we believe that our own affairs are much more important.
We will value and encourage collaboration, the exchange of ideas and teamwork, because only through practice can one understand the other and know how to reach agreements. We will banish competitiveness as a means of improvement and educational excellence.
We will give time to free play, as a vehicle for self-discovery and exploration and as a formula to learn to assess risks, cooperate and reach agreements. We must even keep in mind that free play, in groups or alone, helps the child to find creative and divergent solutions to what is established.
Another vehicle of critical thinking development It is the one born from the passion for a specific topic, in which, the child, fascinated, will want to investigate, compare data and theories, deepen and draw their own conclusions, of love and dedication, of pleasure.
And we will remember at all times that free people learn to be free, being so and also learning to take responsibility for their actions, not for fear of punishment, but for personal commitment to their rights and those of others.
Here are these proposals to change education focused on the development of critical thinking, and I hope they help you see the learning and personal growth of your students and children globally, remembering that they will become adults on whom their own future will depend and possibly that of the whole of society and of Earth itself.
